


Lifelong

by wicked3659



Category: Transformers, Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:26:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wicked3659/pseuds/wicked3659
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prowl learns that he has more of a history with Jazz than he first thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifelong

**Author's Note:**

> For ante_luce.   
> Thank you for the plot bunny, I hope you like what I did with it and Merry Christmas.

 

Sitting on the wooden bench, Prowl frowned with confusion. Had Jazz meant to say what he did? It didn’t make much sense to Prowl but the ninja had learned over the vorns that everything Jazz did was intentional and had meaning, even if he didn’t see it straight away. Jazz was a very deliberate mech and rarely wasted energy doing or saying things that weren’t necessary or that didn’t have meaning to them.

 

The war had been over for some time and through some miracle of the All Spark, Optimus had found a way to retrieve his spark from the well and place it back into his body. Prowl didn’t remember much from his time there, time had no meaning there. He remembered the instances he’d spoken with his former team, advised them, guided them from the well but that was about it. He did remember the peace though, serenity punctuated with a quiet longing of a life never lived. Upon his return, he had become a much more calm, serene mech. He was living now instead of surviving or fighting to. He wasn’t aimless anymore and he had acted on his desires. Those desires had led him to this modest dojo built by hand, by his and Jazz’s hands to be exact. Set on the edge of a forest in a quiet part of Earth where they had decided to settle as guardians and liaisons between the people of Earth and Cybertron.

 

It was peaceful place filled with laughter and contentment and surrounded by the flora and fauna of Earth. His former team often came to visit and Sari stayed frequently. It had become a second home for her, safe away from the pressures of growing up, as humans did so quickly. Her body may have been that of a Cybertronian protoform but her mind was that of a human and matured as such.

 

It was a place that suited both ninjas surprisingly, given that neither of them had been a mech expecting to settle down. Most of their whole lives had been war and so living in peacetime still required some adjustment. Occasionally Jazz would accept a mission from the Elite Guard and go off world for a little while. They tended to be search and capture or search and rescue missions now, Jazz made sure of it. While Prowl was often called upon to liaise with the local police force or governments for his advice and help, which he was only too happy to give. It kept them busy and made them grateful for their safe, serene haven existing in a quiet pocket of an ever chaotic universe.

 

Prowl hummed thoughtfully and watched as a frog hopped into the small pond with a plop. The frown still creased his faceplates.

 

“You have always been mine, since before I knew what it was I wanted. I’ve just been waiting for you to realise it.”

 

Jazz had given him that knowing smile and kissed him on the lips before telling him he’d be back soon and they could discuss everything and make plans when they had more time. Had it been a yes or a no or a maybe? Jazz had seemed happy enough before he’d left for Cybertron. Maybe he was thinking too much about it? Sighing, Prowl pouted, he hadn’t expected asking Jazz to bond to him to create so much confusion. Why couldn’t he have said yes like any other mech? Prowl chuckled to himself softly and smiled, if Jazz was any other mech, he would never have asked him to bond.

 

****

 

Several Vorns earlier.

The start of the second war.

 

He had seen enough, the council clearly did not have a clue what they were doing. He had dodged fighting in the streets, riots, looting. The planet was going to chaos.

 

War.

 

The grand council, the Elite Guard and the various city senates, calling themselves Autobots; the name of an ancient faction from before Prowl was sparked, had declared war on Megatron - equally as ancient - and anybody who chose to side with him.

 

Megatron was a relic from the Great War itself, the leader of the feared group of Decepticons who had waged horrific battles that had decimated the Autobot forces. He had been defeated, the Autobots had been victorious but at great personal cost. The planet had been virtually destroyed, millions of lives lost. The warlord had been incarcerated and there he had remained until he had somehow escaped and then had vanished from under the noses of the council.

 

His return had marked the start of the end as far as Prowl was concerned. The already bickering councils had floundered over Megatron’s demands for a fairer and more equal Cybertron. He had demanded rights for Decepticons who had been ostracised since the last war, the council had refused. Megatron had started his tirade of manipulation and aggressive negotiation tactics and in the midst of the political confusion a council meet in the neutral grounds of Praxus had been targeted and destroyed. Many members from both sides had been deactivated and nobody was taking responsibility. Autobots blamed Megatron, Megatron denied all involvement and began the long process of peace talks with the leader of the council and of Cybertron, the Magnus. The result had been the council demanding a vote of no confidence in the Magnus. The Magnus had been subsequently assassinated and all fingers had pointed to Megatron. Prowl had been horrified when the council had gone one step further and declared war.

 

Even as the young mechling that he was, Prowl knew from what he read that the sides weren’t clear cut, nobody really knew what had happened. He had hoped with the voting in of the new Magnus, that things would stop the rapid decline into all out fighting but it had been too late. Ultra Magnus could not sway the population from the cry of war and so civil war it was.

 

That had been over a vorn ago and now the fighting was creeping into the streets of Iacon. Prowl who was barely in his adult frame, had started doing what he could. He was a product of the system, abandoned to the state and had moved around frequently, shunning his guardian’s attempts to get him to attend the academy or at the very least join the Elite Guard. He had taken to working instead, in the refugee camps that were springing up in the poorer outskirts of Iacon. The influx of mechs, femmes, sparklings fleeing from cities ravaged by violence was growing by the orn and there was simply not enough space to accommodate them all.

 

Prowl usually took on the job of registering new arrivals, it kept him off the streets and earned him a few credits. It also wasn’t one of the responsibilities that involved turning unfortunate sparks away when they weren’t eligible for registration with the city. The priorities were those with families, sparklings, the injured and the old. Young mechs who were able to fight were conscripted into the Elite Guard. It disgusted Prowl. They had fled from the fighting only to be forced straight back onto the front lines. Many who were barely older than he was.

 

That was when he’d started joining the protests and the marches. Supporting those who spoke out against the war, demanded peace talks, truce. Cybertron couldn’t afford another great war and Megatron’s forces had been stronger than anyone had expected. The Autobots were struggling, things couldn’t continue this way.

 

Walking to his new job at one of the newest refugee camps, Prowl found himself lost in the side streets and suddenly walking through a large area, full of playing and crying sparklings.

 

“Ah! There you are!” The patron of the camp called out, marching over to Prowl. “We thought you weren’t coming,” the large femme slapped a datapad into his hand. “These are the best we could come up with on short notice, we weren’t expecting so many sparklings.”

 

Prowl stared at the datapad and scrolled through the sparkling stories with a growing horror. “I can’t look after sparklings!” He protested.

 

The femme gave him a short laugh. “We all have to make sacrifices, young mech,” she gave him a wily glance. “You can either read to them and keep them safe and in relative control here until we’ve registered and placed their creators, or you could join the conscription queue.”

 

“You can’t do that…” Prowl murmured, trailing off at the sharp look, immediately ducking his gaze from the stern femme.

 

Smirking, the femme clapped Prowl on the back. “I knew you’d see it my way,” she gestured out across the yard of milling sparklings who were all of a sudden very interested in the newcomer. “Good luck,” she added in amusement before heading back inside, leaving Prowl amidst a growing crowd of chatty, noisy sparklings.

 

“Right, um, all of you sit down,” Prowl stated with a frown, starting when suddenly something clamped around his leg. Looking down he gently shook his leg. “That’s not yours, get off,” he insisted incredulously as large bright optics stared up at him. The sparkling laughed and held on tighter. “Uh, I said get off…”

 

“Mine!” the sparkling cried out gleefully, laughing as Prowl gently tried to pry the tiny sparkling from his lower leg.

 

“No mine!” another sparkling cried out, grabbing onto the other leg.

 

The first sparkling frowned a little at the second and let go, much to Prowl’s relief, only to find the cheeky sparkling had somehow found a way to climb onto his back and was currently gripping his shoulder in an attempt to pull itself up.

 

“Hey do you want to fall? You’ll get hurt,” Prowl tried to scold the bitlet, taking the tiny hand in his own as the stubborn sparkling perched victoriously on his shoulder. The tiny grey hand reached out and patted his cheek. “You not hurt, I will catch,” the sparkling stated proudly.

 

“Oh you will, will you?” Prowl couldn’t help but be amused by the storm grey sparkling with the red and blue marker stripes on his upper arms. “And who will catch you, hm?”

 

The sparkling laughed as if Prowl had told him the funniest joke in the world. “You will, silly,” it replied confidently.

 

The second sparkling began tugging at Prowl’s leg and burst out with a high pitched wail. “Me want shoulder!” it hollered loudly.

 

Prowl groaned and looked around for somebody, anybody to help him. He was on his own and had no choice but to resign himself to his fate. Sitting down carefully, making sure not to jostle the little one on his shoulder; he onlined the datapad with the stories and began to read as the sparklings swarmed around him happily.

 

****

 

Prowl visited the camp regularly over the next vorn or so and was always put in charge of looking after the sparklings. There were too many of them to learn names and so many of the families came and went so frequently; Prowl had found it easier not to get too attached, though he couldn’t help it if he developed a couple of favourites.

 

A couple of the sparklings he recognised every time he visited, had taken to corralling the younger sparklings into an orderly group when it was story time, something which Prowl was exceedingly grateful for, the sparklings had seemingly boundless energy. In thanks he occasionally managed to sneak in a few energon goodies for the helpful sparklings, when he could afford them himself.

 

The storm grey sparkling that had climbed onto his back in that first visit seemed especially pleased with the treats, even as he got older and always gave him a beatific smile when he showed up. Prowl was never sure whether it was his company or the potential promise of goodies that made him smile so brightly but he always sat attentively for story time and shushed the other sparklings if they tried to interrupt. Prowl was amused at how the other sparklings followed and listened to him but also saddened at the fact that the sparkling had virtually spent his entire sparklinghood in the camp and was now one of the oldest still living there.

 

For a while the fighting eased and many of the families dissipated to new or old homes, taking a number of the sparklings with them but a few remained. Either because they had been orphaned by the fighting or their family had no home to return to.

 

That’s why it filled Prowl’s spark with anger when the Elite Guard began their recruitment drives on the streets of Iacon. Hadn’t there been enough fighting, enough loss and death? Being involved with the refugee camps had forced him to see the real victims of the war and it sickened him. Those sweet sparklings were innocents and had all deserved better.

 

“I heard you were out protesting again,” the large femme folded her arms and pinned Prowl with a pointed look as he entered the building.

 

“Somebody has to stand up for what’s right,” Prowl muttered, sensing he was about to be lectured.

 

“Prowl not all of us can afford to live in denial,” she replied sadly.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not in denial,” he retorted hotly, frowning at the insinuation.

 

Shaking her helm the femme clicked disapprovingly at his tone and her hard optics warned him to be mindful of his tone. “The Autobots are fighting for the innocents we’re trying to keep safe, mechs like you could really help their efforts, instead of creating unrest on the streets protesting against a war you’re too young to understand.”

 

Prowl folded his arms, mouth pursing into a sullen pout. “If I’m too young to understand, why the frag would I fight for them?” he retorted. “All I see is that both them and those ‘cons are to blame and mechs like me and the families who get dumped here are the ones who have to suffer the fallout. None of us asked for this, none of us wanted war, none of us cared about some ancient misgivings some even more ancient mechs had against one another, it’s history. I care about Cybertron now and everything was fine until the Elite Guard declared martial law and starting forcing conscriptions. Their fight is not our fight,” he argued passionately, firmly believing in the old ideals of the golden age, long past.

 

Taken aback slightly by Prowl’s emotional rant, the femme regarded him critically. “You have a lot of potential, Prowl, I’ll give you that but you are naive,” she smiled. “That’s alright though, I for one hope you don’t get picked up and forced to join the ‘Guard.”

 

Surprised, Prowl opened his mouth to argue before stopping himself. “Why?”

 

“So then I don’t have to count you among the young mechs that I used to know before they went off fighting, never to be seen again,” she replied quietly.

 

“I...I didn’t know I’m sorry…”

 

She shrugged and vented a soft sigh. “Be careful out there, young Prowl, you are too young, but not to the ‘Guard and if I know you were out there breaking the law and protesting, so will they. They have optics everywhere,” she handed him his usual datapad. “Go on, the sparklings are waiting for you.”

 

“Thank you,” Prowl murmured quietly, heading into the sparkling compound with a small frown. The femme was right about one thing, he did have to be more careful. The Elite Guard quite often came around to the camps to recruit.

 

****

 

Stepping into the yard area, Prowl frowned. There were no waiting sparklings. Canting his helm curiously he stepped a little further and halted. Turning on his heel he started to head back inside only to stop suddenly with a frown. His optic ridge raised up slightly at the sound of snickering behind him. Humming in realisation, Prowl continued marching to the main door before stopping without warning once more, smirking when a number of sparklings marched straight into the back of his legs. Peering down he regarded the storm grey sparkling with a bemused optic. “Why are you following me?”

 

The eldest sparkling stood back and put his arms behind his back, grinning brightly at Prowl all the while. The other curious sparklings, many of whom Prowl didn’t recognise peered out from behind the older one. “Pretty,” the grey sparkling stated boldly. His single word prompted a chorus of ‘pretty’ from the other sparklings who all started milling about Prowl excitedly.

 

Prowl was amused and shook his helm. “Go sit and we can have a story,” he commanded gently, pointing to the usual spot.

 

The sparklings cheered and ran to get the best seat, usually one practically in Prowl’s lap. Eyeing the grey sparkling still grinning at him, Prowl narrowed his optics. “What?”

 

The little sparkling shrugged. “Still mine,” he chimed brightly and ran off to the others, immediately settling them down with a matured ease that impressed Prowl. He really needed to learn his name, he had been in the camp as long as Prowl had been visiting. His thoughts were immediately cut off by a loud explosion on the streets and the sounds of fighting.

Spark pounding, Prowl quickly corralled the screaming, crying sparklings into the sheltered part of the camp and they huddled down while the fighting escalated outside the camp walls. He did his best to reassure them but a lot of them had experienced these noises before and they knew it wasn’t good. He was struggling to calm them and wondered where the camp patrons had disappeared to.

 

His attentions were drawn to the soft sound of singing and he gazed at the little grey sparkling who was quietly singing to the youngest of the sparklings, who were clinging to him and whimpering. Much to Prowl’s relief the gentle singing worked and the sparklings settled into a quiet murmuring huddle and waited.

 

“Prowl!”

 

Prowl wriggled free of the pile of sparklings and headed into the yard to face the femme. “Where were you?” he demanded hotly.

 

“We had trouble at the front, we locked off the communal areas to keep the families safe, are the sparklings?” the femme replied, flustered.

 

“They’re fine. Since when did we have fighting on the streets of Iacon?”

 

“It’s a small band of ‘cons, and then a riot broke out, Prowl, the guard handled it.”

 

“Did they,” Prowl retorted, folding his arms. He looked around at the smoking streets and the partially destroyed yard. “Without incident I suppose,” he growled, marching past the femme.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Somebody has to talk sense, this cannot go on, this is wrong, I’m joining the protest, I’ve had enough of sitting and doing nothing. Look at this!” he gestured to the rubble in the yard. “The sparklings could have been killed, they don’t know what’s going on, they have no where to go!”

 

“Prowl, you can’t go out there!” the femme called after him.

 

He turned and his optics fell on the grey sparkling who had ran after him. “You can’t follow me this time,” his voice softened as he crouched down, placing a hand on his shoulder.

 

“You have to go?”

 

“I do,” Prowl replied, hating that the normally cheerful sparkling looked so sad.

 

“Why?” came the soft whisper.

 

“Someone has to stand up for what’s right, for those who can’t fight for themselves, for you, do you understand?”

 

The sparkling frowned and his mouth twisted as he looked up at Prowl. Nodding a little, the sparkling rushed forward as Prowl stood and clamped his arms around his leg, squeezing tightly. Looking up with a bright smile and equally bright optics, the sparkling stepped back. “Mine,” he stated resolutely before turning and running back to the other sparklings surrounding the worried looking femme.

 

It only gave Prowl more resolve to step outside the camp and join the growing crowds of mechs and femmes marching to the grand palace to protest the war. The fighting had to be stopped and Prowl would do what he could, for those that couldn’t and he carried that bright smile with him in inspiration to keep marching and speaking up against the coming war.

 

****

 

Present day

 

Waiting for the familiar ship to arrive, Prowl always felt a flutter in his spark. There wasn’t much chance of injury now but it never stopped him worrying and he always came to meet Jazz when he was due to arrive. He smiled with relief when the ship appeared in the atmosphere and made it’s slow approach.

 

Jazz stepped off the ship and his visor met Prowl’s the instant he touched the ground and his face broke into a bright smile as he gave a wave.

 

He’d spent most of the time in Jazz’s absence, scouring his memory files in search of when they had possibly encountered each other before. Had they met and Prowl hadn’t realised? He hadn’t found anything that suggested that was the case and remained confused by what Jazz had said before he’d left.

 

Prowl waited patiently for him and smiled as he heard Jazz humming gently as he worked. He tilted his helm as he recognised the tune and frowned thoughtfully as he approached the other ninja. “Jazz…?”

 

“Yes, love?” Jazz turned around from securing his ship with a smile.

 

“Have you always had that visor?”

 

Jazz laughed. “You’re asking me this now?”

 

Prowl gave a nonchalant shrug. “I’m curious, being dead does that to a mech.”

 

Jazz pulled a face and shook his helm in bemusement. “No, got it in my adult upgrades, when I joined the ‘Guard. Apparently I have expressive optics,” he explained.

 

“And were you always white?”

 

Jazz approached and gently curled his arms about Prowl’s waist. “No, I was protoform grey with red and blue markers on my shoulders, growing up as a refugee didn’t lend itself to nice frames,” he replied easily, regarding Prowl with a bright visor. “Had an epiphany, love?”

 

Prowl canted his helm with a small, his fingers tracing the outline of his Elite Guard emblem. “Pretty…” he murmured softly.

 

Jazz’s smile widened and he squeezed Prowl gently, pressing a kiss to the centre of his chevron. “Still mine,” he replied warmly, meeting Prowl’s knowing gaze.

 

****

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 


End file.
